


Blueberry Syrup

by dilaudiddreams



Series: Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Hoodie stealing, Insecure Spencer Reid, M/M, Morning After, Spencer thinks it's a one night stand, hopefully my writing is better than my summarizing lmao, it's not, pure fluff, they have sex, zero substance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:07:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24757492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilaudiddreams/pseuds/dilaudiddreams
Summary: "Listen, uh...do you think I could maybe...take you out...sometime?”Spencer frowns. “What do you mean?”“Snipe you. No. What do you think? To dinner or something.”Spencer wakes up in Derek Morgan's bed. He tries to sneak out without waking him.He fails, and he winds up staying for breakfast out of common courtesy (and maybe something else).Set season 1. Tooth-rotting sweet.
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Series: Tumblr Prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789585
Comments: 21
Kudos: 470





	Blueberry Syrup

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt for this one was:
> 
> "Have you seen my hoodie?"  
> "..."  
> "You're wearing it, aren't you?"

Spencer wakes up as soon as the sun’s flush has spread to the center of the sky.

For a fraction of a second, before he’s opened his eyes, he’s certain he’s at home. 

Then, for an even smaller increment, he’s half-awake and confused at the unfamiliar angles at which the light fills his peripherals. 

Then, _then_ , once his brain has fully rejoined him on planet Earth, _then_ he remembers. 

_Holy shit._

_Holy shit_. 

_Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid, Spencer._

_Sleeping with your coworker?_

_Think._

_He’s still asleep._

Carefully, as if he’s diffusing a bomb, Spencer removes Morgan’s ( _heavy—good Lord, what does this guy lift?)_ arm from where it’s draped across his chest and sits upright. He keeps every muscle in his body tense in an effort to keep as still as possible. 

_Twelve and a half feet to the door, clothes five feet three inches left of the door._

_Will take me two minutes to dress. My legs are three feet and four inches long. My strides are four feet and five inches on average._

_Sixteen stairs._

_Six and a half inches each._

It should take him, he reasons, about four minutes and some change to dress himself and get out the front door, as long as he makes exceptionally good time and manages to dodge distractions and interference. (He doesn’t want to seem too eager, hanging around the house the morning after—he doesn’t want Morgan to know just how much this matters to him.)

As soon as Spencer shifts his weight, though, he realizes how _sore_ he is after the night he’s had, and he tries to adjust his calculations for limping.

_Six minutes? Eight?_

He’s not sure. 

God, he _hates_ being unsure. 

Painstakingly slowly, Spencer climbs out of bed and tiptoes over to the corner of the room where his clothes had been carelessly discarded the night before. 

He finds that he almost doesn’t want to put them back on. He feels as though he’s somehow a changed person. 

For just a moment, as he’s wrestling his jeans on, Spencer pauses to drink in the tranquility laid out before him. The sun has risen in full, and its gentle morning rays are slipping in defined slates through the blinds covering the window above the bed. Derek Morgan is passed out with his back to the corner of the room where Spencer is standing. 

Even from behind, everything about him seems sculpted, somehow; unnaturally beautiful, like he was created by something much more powerful than a man and a woman. His shoulder blades, the curvature of his spine, his medium-dark complexion that almost seems to glow in the sunlight—it’s all perfect. His back is scratched up, and it’s with genuine surprise that Spencer realizes he must’ve done that. 

Reluctantly, he tears his eyes away and turns to face the wall as he gets dressed.

_Four and a half minutes with NO DISTRACTIONS._

_No distractions._

_Don’t get distracted._

_Don’t get—_

“What’re you doing?” Morgan calls from behind him, voice thick with sleep.

 _Shit._

Spencer pivots quickly around, heart hammering, still holding his shirt in his left hand. “I was j—uh—I was just…leaving…?” 

Morgan frowns. “I drove you here.”

“I was…gonna take the metro.” 

“Uh-uh. What kinda douchebag do you think I am? I’m not gonna fuck you and let you take the train home.” 

“Morgan, I can—”

“Hey. Call me Derek, okay?” 

“ _Derek_ , I can get myself home. It’s really not a problem.”

“It is a problem. I’ll make you breakfast. C’mon.” His face softens a bit. “Please?”

It occurs to Spencer, then, that he might actually be _wanted_ here. He entertains the thought (doesn’t cling to it, but allows it to pass by without shooting it down) that Morgan - _Derek_ , whatever - actually _wants_ to make him breakfast, and isn’t just doing it out of obligation to convention or because he feels bad for him. It’s an unfamiliar (though certainly not unwelcome) feeling—being wanted is a dopamine rush he hasn’t felt in years.

Spencer nods, trying his best not to grin like a lovesick teenage girl. “Okay. Sure, I can stay for breakfast.” 

… 

Spencer’s never been good at sitting still.

It’s _twice_ as bad when he’s nervous. 

The atmosphere of the kitchen is not tense—that’s not the right word, because Derek certainly doesn’t seem tense, humming to himself as he flips pancakes and the dusty, familiar smell of the heat turning on fills the room—but _Spencer_ is certainly tense. He hadn’t grabbed his shirt when he’d come downstairs, having been thrown off of his groove by Derek asking him to stay for breakfast, and he’s self-conscious and cold. 

“Do you mind if I look at your pictures?” He asks, gesturing towards the framed photos on the wall in the living room. 

“Not at all, pretty boy. These’ll be done in—actually, I’ll come in there.” 

As Spencer stands up, he absentmindedly grabs a hoodie draped across the back of one of the kitchen chairs and tugs it over his head. It’s warm, soft, and smells like Derek. 

He never wants to take it off.

The living room is painted a pale blue color. The couch and the coffee table sit a foot and a half apart. There’s a brown, circular rug (about six feet in diameter, Spencer notes) in the center of the floor. The walls are lined with collections of photos; side-by-side portraits of two pretty young Black women who Spencer recognizes as Derek’s sisters, a photo of Derek at some sort of waterfall with his arm around a slim, pretty brunette (which sparks an irrational jealousy that Spencer swallows as best he can), and a small framed photo of a group of people which looks to have been taken with a disposable camera. He moves in to get a closer look.

“Is this JJ on your wall here?”

“In the group picture with the unit?” Morgan calls. “Yeah. We look a lot younger there, huh?”

Spencer smiles. “You do. I didn’t even recognize Gideon. What year was this?” 

“That was ‘98. JJ’s first year. Probably my favorite year with the BAU yet.” 

_Before I was there_ , Spencer realizes with a twinge of sadness.

“That was before we got the jet,” Derek continues. “Man, you don’t know the struggle. We used to fly commercial. Get split up and sat next to randos. But that was before 9/11, so...hey, did you see my hoodie anywhere? I swear I set down here somewhere.” 

Spencer’s smile fades. He balls his fists within the too-long sleeves of Derek’s missing hoodie. _Fuck._ God, he’s so bad at these things. He’s never sure in advance exactly where people draw the lines of their comfort zones, but he can always tell when he’s overstepped them, and standing here at 9 o’clock in the morning in his coworker’s living room, bare-chested beneath his hoodie, sore between the legs and staring at his family photos, he knows he’s certainly overstepped. He’s gotten too comfortable.

Spencer reaches to pull the garment off. “Uh, I…”

“You’re wearing it, aren’t you?”

“I’m not, I—”

Derek chuckles. “You’re super cute. I’ll be out there in one sec.” 

..

Honestly, the fact that Derek regularly has two kinds of syrup (maple _and_ blueberry) in his house is extremely intimidating. 

Spencer’s spent most of his life around older people, and, though he certainly never feels left behind intellectually, there are occasional jarring moments when he realizes just how immature he is in comparison to his peers. This is one of these times; he feels adolescent and ridiculous looking around Morgan’s fully-furnished, Real Adult living room, thinking about how he probably has a mortgage and a spice cabinet and a swiffer mop. 

(Two kinds of syrup—really? Spencer doesn’t even have ice cubes. Maybe he should get an ice tray.)

“Did you know that the profitable blueberry season in South America directly follows the profitable blueberry season in North America, almost to the day?” Spencer asks, nervously dragging his forkful of pancake through his puddle of blueberry syrup. He’s hardly eaten. He’s too uneasy. “On the day that the average North American blueberry farmer’s profits decline to zero, the average South American blueberry farmer’s spike. Now, this is partly just because of demand, of course, but the fact that it’s so exact—”

“Spencer?” Morgan interrupts.

He mentally kicks himself. “Sorry.”

“Hey, no. Don’t be sorry. Listen, uh...do you think I could maybe...take you out...sometime?”

Spencer frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Snipe you. No. What do you think? To dinner or something.”

(If Spencer didn’t know any better, he’d almost think Derek looked nervous. He’s biting his lower lip—it’s a classic anxiety tell. Sometimes, Spencer really wishes he wasn’t a profiler.)

“...Why?”

“ _Why_?” Morgan repeats. “Because I like you.”

Spencer’s stomach turns over. “You _do_?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“...Do you really mean that?” (His heart hammers. He wonders, for a moment, if this is some kind of cruel joke, like the ones kids used to play on him in high school.)

“What? Of course I mean it.”

“Do you do this with everyone? I mean, everyone…?”

“No.” 

It’s difficult for Spencer to comprehend; he almost can’t wrap his head around the idea that someone so gorgeous and so widely loved and so well-put-together would want anything at all to do with him, let alone _this_. “Then why is this different?”

“Because _you’re_ different. I’ve never met anyone like you in my life. Look, can I take you out, or not?”

Spencer locks eyes with Derek and raises his forkful of pancake (now completely saturated with blueberry syrup) to his lips. He’s unsure whether the overwhelming, comfortable warmth he feels is from the heat, Derek’s hoodie, or the affection he feels bubbling up inside him at the prospect of a date, but he finds that he doesn’t really mind. 

“I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!! Please consider leaving feedback if you did--it means a lot. Love you!


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